Friendship

Friendship - Non-personal friendships

Although the term initially described relations between individuals, it is at times used for political purposes to describe relations between states or peoples ("the Franco-German friendship," for example), indicating in this case an affinity or mutuality of purpose between the two nations.

Regarding this aspect of international relations, Lord Palmerston has said that, "Nations have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Only permanent interests."

Friendship - Interspecies friendship

Friendship as a type of interpersonal relationship is found also among animals with rich intelligence, such as the higher mammals and some birds. Cross-species friendships are common between humans and domestic animals. Less common but still of note are friendships between an animal and another animal of a different species, such as a dog and cat.

Friendship - Colloquial nomenclature

A number of colloquial terms have been used to describe friendship and the context in which a friendship is fostered. These are briefly described below.

* A friend who supports others only when it is easy and convenient to do so is called a fair-weather friend.
* A friend who sticks by you through "thick and thin" is a true friend.
* A friend with whom you are sexually intimate but don't consider yourself to be dating is said to be a Casual relationship. This is also referred to as being "friends with benefits".

Friendship - Friendship contrasted with comradeship

Friendship can be mistaken for comradeship. Comradeship is the feeling of affinity that draws people together in time of war or when people have a mutual enemy or even a common goal. Former New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges has written: "We feel in wartime comradeship. We confuse this with friendship, with love. There are those, who will insist that the comradeship of war is love -- the exotic glow that makes us in war feel as one people, one entity, is real, but this is part of war's intoxication. As this feeling dissipated in the weeks after the attack, there was a kind of nostalgia for its warm glow and wartime always brings with it this comradeship, which is the opposite of friendship. Friends are predetermined; friendship takes place between men and women who possess an intellectual and emotional affinity for each other. But comradeship -- that ecstatic bliss that comes with belonging to the crowd in wartime -- is within our reach. We can all have comrades." [3] As a war ends, or a common enemy recedes, comrades return to being strangers, who lack friendship and have little in common.

Friendship - Bibliography

* Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle
* On Friendship, Cicero
* Hein, David. "Farrer on Friendship, Sainthood, and the Will of God." In Captured by the Crucified: The Practical Theology of Austin Farrer. Edited by David Hein and Edward Hugh Henderson. New York and London: Continuum / T & T Clark, 2004. 119-48.

Types of Friendships

* Romantic friendship
* Soulmate
* Best Friend or Best Girlfriend
* Pen pal
* Internet friendship
* Compadrazgo
* Comrade
* Buddy
* Cuddle Buddy
* Boyfriend/Girlfriend
* Romantic life-partner
* Platonic life-partner
* Compadre/Commadre
* Godparent
* Godsibb
* Good Friend
* Gossip
* Facebook friend
* Families of choice or Chosen families
* Friends with access/Friends with benefits
* Sexualized friendship
* Kula
* Pili hoaloha
* Boston marriage
* Blood brotherhood
* Kasendi
* Classical friendship
* Ritual friendship or Religious friendship
* Companionate love
* Intimate relationship
* Love
* Platonic love
* Romantic love
* Brotherhood or Sisterhood
* Drinking buddy

Friendship

Friendship - Developmental issues

In the sequence of the emotional development of the individual, friendships come after parental bonding and before the pair bonding engaged in at the approach of maturity. In the intervening period between the end of early childhood and the onset of full adulthood, friendships are often the most important relationships in the emotional life of the adolescent, and are often more intense than relationships later in life. These friendships are most often with one's age and sex peers, though equally intense bonds can form with older or younger individuals.

Friendship - Cultural variations

A group of friends consists of two or more people who are in a mutually pleasing relationship engendering a sentiment of camaraderie, exclusivity and mutual trust. There are varying degrees of "closeness" between friends. Hence, some people choose to differentiate and categorize friendships based on this sentiment.

Friendship - Russia

The relationship is constructed differently in different cultures. In Russia, for example, one typically accords very few people the status of "friend." These friendships however make up in intensity what they lack in number. Friends are entitled to call each other by their first names alone, and to use diminutives. Everyone else is addressed by full first name plus patronymic, and is known as an "acquaintance." These could include relationships which elsewhere would be qualified as real friendships, such as workplace relationships of long standing, neighbors with whom one shares an occasional meal and visit, and so on. Physical contact between friends is expected, and friends, whether or not of the same sex, will embrace, kiss and walk in public with their arms around each other, or arm-in-arm, or hand-in-hand, without the slightest embarrassment or sexual connotation.

According to Oleg Kharkhordin in a paper on the politics of friendship, in Soviet society, friendships were "a suspect value for the Stalinist regime" in that they presented a stronger allegiance that could stand in possible opposition to allegiance to the Communist party. "By definition, a friend was an individual who would not let you down even under direct menace to him- or herself; a person to whom one could securely entrust one's controversial thoughts since he or she would never betray them, even under pressure. Friendship thus in a sense became an ultimate value produced in resistance struggles in the Soviet Union [2]."

Friendship - Greece

In Ancient Greece, in a text in defense of pederasty, Plato asserts that, "the interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit, and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above all other motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience; for the love of Aristogeiton and the constancy of Harmodius had a strength which undid their power." Plato, Symposium; 182c

Aristotle categorized friendship into three different categories:

1. Friendship of Utility
2. Friendship of Pleasure
3. Friendship of Virtue

Friendship - Asia

In the Middle East and Central Asia male friendships, while less restricted than in Russia, tend also to be very intimate, and also involve a great deal of mutual non-sexual but affectionate touching, holding of hands and so on.

Friendship - Modern west

In the Western world, intimate physical contact has been sexualized in the public mind over the last one hundred years and is considered taboo in friendship, especially between two males. However, stylized hugging or kissing may be considered acceptable, depending on the context. An exception are young children, whose friendships, usually of a homosocial nature, typically exhibit elements of a closeness and intimacy suppressed later in life in order to conform to societal standards.

About Friendship

If There Is One Ingredient Which Adds

Warmth And Love To Our Lives

It Is FriEndship



If There Is One Relationship To Help

Us Through All The Others

It Is Friendship



Friends Surround Us With The Beauty

Of There Caring With Friends We Can

Share What We See What We Feel

And What We Love




Friends Help Us With Our Problems

Because They Listen And As They Listen

We Begin To Hear The Lauguage Of

Our Own Hearts




With Friends We Can Walk Along The

Remembered Paths Of Our Lives

And Completely Share Our Experiences




With Friends We Can Work The Soil Of

Forgotten Dreams That Needed To Be

Tended And Nutured Once Again





With Friend We Can Plant The Seed

Of Our Hearts New Dreams

We Can Always Return To A Friend Like

Going Back To A Special Place

And Find The Same Warm Feeling

Unchange By Time Of Distance




Life Gives Us Friends So We Can Share

The Precious Times And Memorable

Moments Of Being Children And Teenagers

And Adults And Parents And Grandparents



Life Gives Us Friends So We Can Share

The Growing Up...And Growing Down

And Old




With Friends We Have A Place To Go To

Be Accepted And Understood

Together We Can Cry

Our Thoughts Are Heard

Our Feelings Are Held

In The Heart Of A Friend





With Friends Our Lives Are Made

More Full , More Rich More Open

Beautiful And Blessed.

Friends like you

Friendship is precious!

not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life;

and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things,

The greater part of life is sunshine.




Of all the blossoms in life's garden,

friendship is the most fragrant.



A friend is a gift where worth cannot

be measured except by the heart




Be full of sympathy toward each other,

loving one another with tender hearts and humble minds

Friendship is sharing openly, laughing often,

trusting always, caring deeply.



We can pour our heart out to a friend

knowing that gentle hands will take

and sift it, keep what is worth keeping,

and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away!



Thank YOU for being my friend,

as amazing of a gift your friendship is to me.

MAY LOVE JOY AND PEACE BE YOURS

HAPPY INDIPENDENCE DAY